Law enforcer in Leicester / THU 3-5-26 / CVS Health subsidiary / Replay technique, informally / Winning hit at Wimbledon / Gomez's cousin on 1960s TV / Leif, to Eric the Red / One-named artist who sang the U.S. national anthem at the Paris Olympics closing ceremony / Performs at a Thunderbirds show

Constructor: Hanh Huynh

Relative difficulty: Easy-Medium (this will vary widely depending on when you pick up the gimmick)

[17A: User of the Force]

THEME: DARK / HORSES (66A: With 68-Across, long-shot candidates ... or a hint to six squares in this puzzle) — six black ("dark") squares actually contain letters (H, O, R, S, E, S, respectively), which you must supply in order to make sense of twelve answers that run through them:

Theme answers:

• ORCHESTRATE / OVERTHROW (5D: Choreograph / 19A: Remove from power)
• DISHONOR / RAMONES (35A: Bring shame upon / 22D: "Blitzkrieg Bop" band)
• EVERPRESENT / ORCHESTRATE (38A: Always there / 5D: Choreograph)
• EVERPRESENT / PASSING SHOT (38A: Always there / 26D: Winning hit at Wimbledon)
• ALIENATE / LIVES ON (42A: Estrange / 28D: Endures)
• CONSTABLE / PASSING SHOT (61A: Law enforcer in Leicester / 26D: Winning hit at Wimbledon)

Word of the Day: NATE Archibald (44A: N.B.A. great ___ Archibald) —

Nathaniel "Tiny" Archibald (born September 2, 1948) is an American former professional basketball player. He spent 14 years playing in the National Basketball Association (NBA), most notably with the Cincinnati Royals/Kansas City–Omaha Kings and Boston Celtics. In 1991, he was enshrined into both the Naismith Memorial Basketball Hall of Fame and the New York City Basketball Hall of Fame.

Archibald was a willing passer and an adequate shooter from midrange. However, it was his quickness, speed and shiftiness that made him difficult to guard in the open court, as he would regularly drive past defenders on his way to the basket. This versatility helped Archibald lead the NBA in scoring and assists in the same season (1972–73), making him the first of only two players in league history to achieve such a feat.

• • •

[Dark Horse Comics presents... TALES OF THE [17-Down]]

This is architecturally spectacular, but only on review. The solve itself, while not very difficult, was chaotic, and yet underneath all that chaos the puzzle itself, at the basic clue/answer level, was actually kind of lifeless. So I was very impressed, ultimately, by the structure of it all, and somewhat bored by the act of moving in and around that structure. If you look at the clues, there's nothing very interesting happening at all. There's nothing you would consider entertaining or eye-grabbing answers, no particularly tricky or clever clues. Everything here is in the service of the theme, which (revealer aside), is an entirely structural theme. The clues, the meanings of words, none of these have any relation to the theme. Letters are building blocks. There's no engagement with solvers at the level of word meaning, really. Words are broken up, but breaking them up is purely an act of the physical manipulation of letters. I don't have to figure anything out at the level of word meaning or wordplay. At the ends of puzzles like these I always feel like I'm supposed to clap (and I am clapping) but more because the constructor made a really intricate contraption than because I particularly enjoyed myself while solving it. So it's a very well made puzzle ... just not one that thrilled me as a solver. 

It's possible that the thrill was gone quickly for me today because I picked up the basics of the theme very, very early, at ORCHESTRATE, when I had an undeniable ORC that made no sense for the clue (). I had already been thinking "Orchestrate" was a synonym for [Choreograph], so I just experimented: if I were a "-HESTRA," where would I go??? Tried the most obvious place first: directly through the black square at the end of ORC. And that turned out to be right. Let out a little "ooh" when I realized that ORCHESTRATE would have to go through two different black squares. And that was that. Well not that that. I had no idea what the black "H" and "R" were doing, but ... hidden-letter gimmick, unlocked. I went through the following black square and it was just a regular black square, with regular answers on the other side. Very quickly, I ended up all the way at the bottom of the grid:

I realize now that part of what made the solve feel chaotic was that I had no way to mark those squares as I was solving. On paper, you could write on those squares or indicate their specialness in some way, but online, you just have to keep imagining the letter there, and since there are so many black squares in a puzzle, those special squares were really hard to keep straight. Lots of bumbling around not because I didn't understand, but because I kept losing track of squares I'd already sussed out. So ... fussy, not hard. BAH. Anyway, the revealer phrase came shortly after ORCHESTRATE, and while that let me know what letters would be in play, I still had to go find them. A kind of Easter egg hunt. There was some fun in that, some challenge. But actually solving the clues themselves wasn't too hard (or too interesting). But you do have to admire the structural elegance of this thing. "H-O-R-S-E-S" all appear in order, when reading top to bottom, and all the regularly-filled elements of the puzzle are plausible crossword answers even when they are unclued (i.e. ORC is a real thing and ALI is a real thing and CON is a real thing, etc.). That is, no gibberish. Having three different answers that traverse two "dark" letters also struck me as impressive. It's quite a machine, this puzzle. Wish I'd enjoyed driving it more. The only real challenge this one presented for me involved holding those hidden-letter black squares in my mind. Everything else felt Tuesday. Tepid Tuesday.

Bullets:

• 1A: Replay technique, informally (SLO-MO) — a gimme. SLO-MO to OPER, MEETS, and ... ORC? Oh, ORCHESTRA. While I didn't fly through the puzzle (because of all the black-square business), I cannot find another place in this puzzle where I struggled in any way with the actual clues. Oh, except ...
• 36D: One-named artist who sang the U.S. national anthem at the Paris Olympics closing ceremony (H.E.R.) — I keep forgetting H.E.R. exists. I know H.E.R. won a Grammy, because the puzzle tells me so every once in a while, but for whatever reason H.E.R.'s name keeps falling out of my bag of one-named artists. In three letters, I think SIA, SZA ... ??? You gotta go to four and five letters to get to the real one-named titans: CHER, ENYA, ADELE. Part of the issue is that I know actual songs by all the other one-named artists. I can't hum a thing by H.E.R.. Let's see if I can begin to change that today:

[255M views on YouTube]

• 38A: Always there (EVERPRESENT) — the first three letters here were probably the toughest part for me today, or the part I stumbled over the most. I couldn't figure out the Down cross (LIVES ON) and because I was focused on that trick square, I did not expect another trick square to be so close by, which means I kept assuming the answer to 38A: Always there was just three letters long. E'ER? E'ER seemed very close to [Always there]. But no. .... ERE? No. Colder. 
• 46D: Big Dutch bank (ING) — bank names made solely out of random letters. Not my idea of a good time. I think I wrote GNC here at first, but that's a vitamin and supplement store chain.
• 52D: Typewriter feature (TAB SET) — more unappealing fill. Do the keys actually say "TAB SET"? I have a typewriter here and it's just got a right-facing arrow on its "tab" key. This formal name for a bygone thing wasn't hard, but it wasn't pleasant either.
• 2D: San Diego suburb (LA MESA) — if you're in the San Diego suburbs, I'd say you're in the weeds, fill-wise. If you're in the city, great, everyone knows cities. If you're in the suburbs, yikes. Only locals know suburbs. You should probably avoid suburbs. Remember: NATICK* is a suburb. 

That's all for today. See you next time.

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

*NATICK is the term for an unfair / uninferable crossing, esp. of proper nouns

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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Cousins of grommets / WED 3-4-26 / Spicy chip brand / "Star Wars" droid, informally / Saucer crew, in brief / Delicacy that's often slurped / "Slow down there, big guy" / Cassette successors

Constructor: Wayne Bergman

Relative difficulty: Medium

[9A: "Star Wars" droid, informally]

THEME: List, interrupted — idiomatic phrases where the first word can mean "remove" or "omit," clued via lists wherein one element has been removed / omitted:

Theme answers:

• MISS THE MARK (3D: Twain, ___, Hamill, Wahlberg)
• SKIP A BEAT (7D: Metro, ___, Sports, Lifestyle)
• CUT A RUG (25A: Persian, ___, Oriental, Navajo)
• TAKE THE CAKE (11D: Red velvet, ___, Black Forest, angel food)
• PULL SOME STRINGS (55A: Violin, ___, cello, ___)

Word of the Day: CUT A RUG (25A) —

To dance, especially in a vigorous manner and in one of the dance styles of the first half of the twentieth century. (wiktionary)

• • •

This one had me at MISS THE MARK, and then PULL SOME STRINGS came along and upped the ante, making me admire the theme even more. The whole cluing concept here struck me as very original and genuinely entertaining, as well as interesting from a solving standpoint—you have to find the connections among the list elements and then also find an idiomatic phrase that might describe the list's omission. This made solving the theme answers a lot of fun. It also made things slightly treacherous in that fat, isolated upper-middle section, where two themers cross each other. That bit was like a self-contained puzzle—accessible only via narrow points of entry on the sides and at the bottom—and so it was hard to work my way in. Basically had to start with the 3s at the top of that section (ESP, AKA) and work down from there. Easy enough to see that RUGs were what the 25A clue was going for, but BEATs!? That was a little harder to get from the clue (7D: Metro, ___, Sports, Lifestyle). Those are sections of a newspaper to me ... which, yes, are technically "beats" that a news reporter might be on. Remember newspapers? Remember news? Good times. Anyway, not complaining about SKIP A BEAT at all, just saying it took some thought. Biggest screwup in that section for me came from writing in LPS for 25D: Cassette successors (CDS). Maybe I was thinking "predecessors"? I don't know. I think of CDS as [LP successors], but maybe there's some idea that the two formats in question are small and portable? Whatever. I just screwed up, which definitely affected my ability to get into that fat upper-middle part. It's a testament to the theme's quality that my frustration in that section didn't lead to any sour feelings toward the puzzle. CUT A RUG! Of course. Always aha, never ugh today.

Well, never ugh with the theme material. There was some ugh with the fill, but not enough to spoil the solve. You do have a lot of 3s today, and there's never anything good to say about 3s. They're just ... there, at best. RAH UAE ESP AKA TEL ORE HUR. But there was nothing unusual or particularly ugly about today's 3s, and in the slightly longer stuff, only ESAI and ARTOO gave me that "ugh, you again?" And when the fill gets a little longer, things get genuinely interesting. You can take "OK, I SEE" and throw it in the ocean (same with all jury-rigged "OH-" and "OK-" and "UH-" phrases) but PAPERLESS and RECOMMITS and SAKE BAR and even TOILET LID (32D: Head covering?), I like, and "EASY TIGER" really wins the day. The fact that the constructor managed to squeeze such a great phrase into that already thematically dense upper-middle section is really impressive. 

Outside of the upper-middle, things were pretty straightforward and deal-with-able. Hardest answer for me to come up with was CAR LOT, which has a clever but (for me) absolutely brutal clue (46A: Mini mart?). Mini is a make of car, which I always forget ... or fail to see when crossword clues decide to use it in a punny fashion. I had almost all the letters in place and still had no idea what the clue was going for "CARLO-, CARLO- ... CARLOS? Who is this CARLOS and why is he a "Mini mart?"). 

Bullets:

• 9A: "Star Wars" droid, informally (ARTOO) — hate when the name is written out phonetically like this. Always stupid-looking. Ah well. We made it well over a week without a Star Wars reference. Ten days, to be precise. That nearly equaled the longest such streak of the year (which is currently eleven—Jan. 4-Jan. 15)
• 19A: Spicy chip brand (TAKIS) — this snack (flavored rolled tortilla chips, shaped like little taquitos) has really come on strong in recent years. The first ever appearance came only in February of last year (!), despite the fact that TAKIS have been around since 2001. Today's was the fifth appearance (three in the singular, two in the plural).

• 31A: Saucer crew, in brief (ETS) — ok ETS and flying saucers aren't real, and the clue should probably indicate fictionality somehow, but I love the phrase "saucer crew" so much that I don't care. Two words that belong nowhere near each other ... near each other. Nice.
• 50A: Where you might drink from a junmai glass (SAKE BAR) — lotsa Japanese material today. SUMO wrestlers at the SAKE BAR wearing OBIS. Actually, SUMOs don't wear OBIS. Instead, the wrestlers, known as RIKISHI, wear loincloths called MAWASHI (total number of NYTXW appearances for RIKISHI and MAWASHI: zero).
• 64A: Pay for play, perhaps (TYPO) — another clever clue. Surface meaning is very convincing / misleading. But no, the answer is not (say) ANTE. You have to imagine "pay" and "play" in scare quotes, indicating you are dealing with them as words alone—their particular meaning doesn't matter, grammatically. 
• 13D: Delicacy that's often slurped (OYSTER) — the only food I can think of that I want absolutely nothing to do with. "Slurping" is unpleasant generally, but somehow slurping ramen, say, seems fine, while slurping an OYSTER ... gag.
• 39D: Cousins of grommets (EYELETS) — sincere first thought: "... Wallaces?"

Signed, Rex Parker, King of CrossWorld

[Follow Rex Parker on BlueSky and Facebook and Letterboxd]
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